Building Empathy Through Persona Dolls
Amount Requested: $800.00 Number of Students Reached: 60+
The TGIF Selection Committee appreciated this teacher’s description of their unique project.
Type a brief description of your project.
This grant will help to implement Persona Dolls as a social-emotional learning (SEL) tool in an early childhood classroom. Persona Dolls are handmade toddler sized dolls that represent children from diverse backgrounds. They each come with their own background story as well as curriculum-based stories to help foster social emotional learning in the classroom. Persona Dolls are powerful educational tools that help young children develop empathy, recognize and manage emotions, and build inclusive attitudes. Through structured storytelling and guided discussions, the students will engage with the dolls' "lives," creating a safe space for exploring emotions and diversity. Storytelling can depict scenarios from the classroom, helping early childhood students to work through classroom situations in a safe environment. This will provide students with an opportunity to work on problem solving skills without feeling attacked or defensive. These Persona dolls will become part of the class as students will take them to purposeful play times and recess which will help students build relationships and empathy.
Why is this project needed for your school?
Early childhood is a critical time for developing social-emotional skills, which are foundational for lifelong learning and positive relationships. However, many early childhood classrooms lack age-appropriate tools to teach and promote these skills. Persona Dolls would provide our early childhood classroom with an age-appropriate resources to promote social emotional learning with littles. Our students represent a range of cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. This initiative will give children a voice, promote emotional literacy, and help educators model and reinforce prosocial behaviors in a developmentally meaningful way. Persona Dolls are an evidence-based strategy for:
What is the projected long-term effect of this project?
Childhood through the use of Persona Dolls and structured SEL curriculum. Providing students with the opportunity to build these skills will help to build the foundation they need to be a life-long learner and nurture positive relationships as they grow older. The Persona dolls will continue to be used in the classroom for years to come. This will provide these same benefits for my future early childhood students as well as my current class. Objective: The objective of this project is to use Persona dolls paired with storytelling curriculum to increase my student’s capacity for empathy, emotion regulation, and inclusive behavior. Measure: Success will be measured through student participation during story-telling lessons and students’ ability to apply those lessons in other settings. This measure will be tracked through observations and checklists. Success will also be measured by students’ growth in their capacity for empathy, emotional regulation, and inclusive behavior. This measure will be tracked through observations and student scores on district behavior grading scale. A base line score will be taken at the beginning of march before curriculum is implemented. Scores from march will be compared to students’ end of the year scores in May of 2026. The Persona Dolls will be used in the classroom after the 2025-2026 school year, continuing this project's impact for several years to come.
Timeline of project implementation/completioN:
Secure funding and materials by January 2026. Begin introducing Persona doll and curriculum to students by March 2026. Implement SEL lessons using the Persona Dolls March 2026-May 2026.
Project Budget:
All dolls will be purchased through Amazeworks education on their website. Amara Persona Doll- $300, Amara book set- $100, Sam Persona Doll- $300, and Sam book set- $100. Total= $800.
Little Typers, Big Impact: Chromebook Keyboard Slip Covers
Amount Requested: $678.00 Number of Students Reached: 55+
This teacher's application was very well-written, detailed, and showed the impact it would have on their students.
This project aims to enhance students' typing proficiency by providing 55 slip covers that conceal Chromebook keyboards, encouraging proper touch-typing techniques. By removing the ability to look at the keys, students will develop muscle memory and increase their typing speed and accuracy over time. The goal is to build foundational keyboarding skills that support long-term academic success and digital literacy. The particular model that fit our school's Chromebooks is called "1-248 Unifit Covers".
This project is needed to support students in developing essential typing skills, which are increasingly important for academic tasks, standardized testing, and future careers. Many students currently rely on looking at the keyboard while typing, which slows progress and limits accuracy. By using slip covers to encourage touch-typing, we can provide a consistent and effective method for improving keyboarding skills across grade levels. This will help ensure all students have the digital fluency needed to succeed in a technology-driven learning environment.
The long-term effect of this project will be improved typing proficiency across our student population, leading to greater confidence and efficiency in completing digital assignments, assessments, and future workplace tasks. By building strong touch-typing habits early, students will be better prepared for academic success and digital literacy requirements throughout their education and beyond. The main objectives of the project are to: Increase typing speed and accuracy. Reduce reliance on looking at the keyboard. Promote consistent typing instruction across classrooms. Success will be measured using data from Typing Club, the typing education program used by our school. We will compare pre- and post-implementation data, including words per minute (WPM) and accuracy rates, to track student progress and evaluate the effectiveness of the slip covers in promoting touch-typing skills.
Timeline of project implementation/completion:
The project will be implemented immediately upon arrival of the keyboard slip covers. In the first week, teachers will introduce the covers during scheduled typing instruction and integrate them into daily use with Typing Club. Over the following weeks and months, students will consistently use the covers during typing practice to reinforce touch-typing skills. Progress will be monitored throughout the school year using Typing Club data, with periodic assessments to measure improvement in speed and accuracy. The project will be ongoing, with the covers remaining a regular part of typing instruction to support long-term skill development. The slip covers will be used for future classes of students, as they attend 5th grade at our school.
Project BudgeT:
Each slip cover, when ordered in bulk (from 4 to 100) is $10.99 each, with an additional $1.35 per cover for shipping & handling, which includes tracking, recipient signature, verification, and insurance. Our school is tax exempt. The grand total for 55 "1-248 Unifit Covers" is $678.70.
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